


This Crown of Thorns

by concerningwolves



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: But don't blame Mercutio, He has enough on his plate, M/M, You can blame Nine Inch Nails for this one, and Benvolio has given up trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2018-12-25 10:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concerningwolves/pseuds/concerningwolves
Summary: Being kinsman to the Prince requires mental stability, being unerringly straight, and a belief in God. Mercutio possesses none of those things.Also known as the one in which Mercutio shatters and Benvolio no longer knows how to be there for his oldest friend. A collection of connected drabbles inspired by two Russian words and the song Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for self harm and a toxic relationship.

 

Mercutio is falling; has been for a long time. He is a veritable Alice down the rabbit hole, one who has forgotten what the sky looks like and can no longer remember how the ground feels beneath his feet. Wonderland is a distance away and he somehow does not think that he will ever end up there. Benvolio does his best, bless his kind soul, but his best will never cut it. The hole is slowly filling in with dirt and the weight of his family is pulling him down. Even if he was thrown a rope at this point, he doubts he will take it. Uncle Escalus' firm rages and Valentine's obsession with the line of succession have worn down his reaching hands and drained all the strength right out of him. 

"Fuck the line of succession." Mercutio is staggering on the edge of the curb, a bottle of vodka in his hand. Devil's strip they call this, on Akron, Ohio: the strip between the pavement and the road. Mercutio is brimming with useless information. Useless in himself, as well. "I can't do it. I'm not made for it, let Valentine have it!"

"Don't do this." Benvolio looks exhausted, drowning under his Psychology coursework and the black sea of kerosine that his friend is becoming. He dares not risk a spark lest all goes up in flames, and so he treads careful on the boards of their slanted stage, doing what he can. Mercutio might feel guilty, if he could see it; but he is blind to everything but himself. He is selfish and sinful, according to Paris. His bare toes curl over the edge of the curb; the broad flagstones are still warm under his feet, and smooth with rain. He lost his shoes somewhere back there in the darkness, a vague idea about Japanese culture and suicide etiquette in his mind. Thunder growls, and the sound strikes him through to his core. 

"Do what? Take an easy out?" Mercutio flings his arms wide, "Leave Tybalt? He's already left me. Leave my family? That's why I'm here. This is what I do, my dear Benvolio: I disappoint " he spits out the last word and watches it land on the cobbles between them, squat and ugly and true. Benvolio's drawn-pale face swims from the collar of his coat. He looks angry.

"Stop it!" Benvolio flings up his hands, both beseeching and angry. In the distance, a truck growls, and lights break through the sheets of rain like two eyes. Benvolio is tensed and ready to run forwards and Mercutio is balancing, really considering it. The truck is coming closer, a driver who only wants to get home on a night like this, going to fast. How much metal is that? A lot. Stopping distance is both braking distance, and thinking distance and under all that weight, on a road like this... God, his skin aches for it as Almasy had come to ache for morphine, that tap on the glass and the cool that lapped at burned nerve endings. Tybalt was his morphine and his skin cries out now for a damning touch that will never come again. Mercutio clenches his fists.  He feels the rush of air behind him and filthy water sloshes over the hem of his jeans, spattering his back and sending him stumbling forwards, into Benvolio's arms. Their hearts beat as one, painfully fast through crush of chest to chest.

Shock seeps slowly down Mercutio from head to toe and he starts to shiver, racked by deep shudders that start at the surface and worm down into his bones, despite the clammy heat burning at him. His fingers clasp at Benvolio's shirt and he holds himself into the other man, gasping, terrified. Drunk. He doesn't want to die drunk. That would only confirm what his family thought of him, and what a crude irony that would be; what a fine joke. Oh, such hilarity! Spilling it into Benvolio's neck, making himself small against the Montague as he laughs fit to break, struggling for air. Benvolio just squeezes his body tight until it is impossible to shiver; impossible to do anything but keep breathing small, even breaths and wait for the wild fury itching under his skin to subside. 

"If I let you go, will you bolt?" Benvolio asks at length, his voice soft. Mercutio shudders again and feels all the strength drain from his knees. 

"Don't," He begs, underbreath, "Don't do that."

Benvolio sighs, folding the two of them down onto the pavement until they are sitting against a lamp-post, Mercutio curled into the younger's lap sobbing like a broken-hearted man. Which, in a sense, he is. 

"You know I can't say no to you." Benvolio murmurs. Mercutio utters a weak laugh. No, Benvolio can never say no to him, because Benvolio is in love with him. Mercutio has known this for years, and pushed it away: commitment frightens him, especially to someone like Benvolio, so sweet and good. But Benvolio's love is his float in a storm now, and he will bask in it as he had once basked in Tybalt's poison. For now, at least, while the offer is here.


	2. Iris (The Closest to Heaven)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercutio will have neither of them; the only option left is one another.

"You love him." Tybalt almost makes no sound, his breath ghosting out over the top of his beer and stirring tiny waves. Benvolio tears his gaze away from his phone screen filled with pictures of Romeo and Juliet's honeymoon, and looks at this man custom dictates he ought to hate. It had been easy to do that once, but Tybalt has changed, mellowed. Now they can tolerate one another, like satellites orbiting the same star. 

But right here, at this moment in time, Benvolio could hate Tybalt as he had never hated him before. His fists curl under the table. 

"I don't know what you mean." Benvolio looks at the tabletop.

"The way you watch him," Tybalt says, voice soft and ragged like silk in the dust, "Is how I watch him; always have done." Oh he looks so folorn then, and so raw, glancing at where Mercutio is chatting up a rough stranger. Pity crawls up Benvolio's throat. 

"He knows, of course." Benvolio says after a sip of the odd cocktail Mercutio had pushed upon him, his tastebuds singed. Tybalt looks surprised, then smug, almost; there is a sense of He Chose Me Over You, and Benvolio suddenly wants to punch him. His nails bite into his palms. "And now we're in the same boat," he says instead, which is just as good as any blow. Tybalt recoils, curls his lip. 

"Everyone loves him and he loves none," The Capulet moves as if to stand, but Benvolio blurts,

"He has no love to give." and lowers his head into his hands with a sigh, a migraine blossoming behind his right eye. It is the lights in here, the soft flicker and sharp stab of neon against candle, and the stress that sits on his shoulder like a small demon. His skin blisters under Tybalt's glare. 

"Do you know him at all?" The Capulet sounds like his old self then, scathing. 

"Not like you, I'm sure," Benvolio replies with neither bite nor sting.

"He has too much of it, this... love." Tybalt shakes his head, "And he locks it all away. Love rots when it's kept in the dark, but you know that, don't you?" 

Back to blows, then, and Benvolio has run out of words. Those are the coin in which Mercutio deals, not he. All he can do is nod, because Tybalt is right. Love does rot in the dark, and like sepsis creeps towards the brain. It all comes down to one man, one spitting inferno: Mercutio, who is now leaving the bar with a complete stranger; Mercutio, who has whispered something into the taller man's ear and recieved a slap; Mercutio, who shudders under the weight of that meaty hand and grins with all his teeth. 

"We should intervene." Tybalt looks tense, pained. Benvolio wonders how the Capulet is faring, in terms of love and darkness. Is it still in his heart, or starting to creep into his bloodstream? Has it curdled into anger yet, or is Tybalt still clinging on for every smile and fleeting touch? He cares for Mercutio, so much. Benvolio can see it now. 

Good. Let someone else care. 

"He should learn for himself." Benvolio starts to count out money for a tip, the world dissolving now into little points of black-white light that flicker at the edges of his vision. Everything will be like an old television soon, and he will dissapear inside a cloud of grey. Stress is a common trigger, his doctor has reminded him time and time again; remove yourself from excessive stress, she always adds as he is heading out of the door. Maybe everyone knows. Does he wear it like a beacon atop his head, this unrequieted love? 

His hand reaches and snags Tybalt's coatsleeve, gripping tight. They look at one another, mirrors in their eyes, love lying between them on the table in a sealed box. 

"Don't go after him." Benvolio stresses his point with bared teeth, ignoring Tybalt's look of surprise. "We're not his keepers. We're his- friends." He chokes out, sylables blurring into one. Tybalt reaches out and picks up the cocktail, never breaking Benvolio's gaze, and takes a tentative sip. He grimaces. They both know that the Montague is caught somewhere between being comfortably tipsy and drunk. The night is intoxicating. 

"Then let me take you home." Tybalt is holding Benvolio now as one might an anchor. 

"Why?" 

"It's the least I can do. For him." 

"This means nothing." Benvolio draws Tybalt closer, for support. Of course. 

"Nothing." Tybalt agrees. "I'm doing it for Mercutio."

"Fuck Mercutio." Benvolio hears himself say. Tybalt seethes, looks like he might hit him, and then they are stumbling for the door with the unspoken _I wish I could_ hanging over their heads. This is the cup they have been offered, and the starving man will drink when food is out of reach.


	3. if the sky comes falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine is sunchild, gem, too good, too pure, precious smol,,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I'm working on something else, but more on that at the end. Enjoy some happier sibling fluff!

Mercutio, son of the Prince's sister and a summer affair, cannot not believe in love. He has no idea what it is. Love broke his mother and his home, and devoured Mercutio as the dark does the light. In his twisted innocence he had thought he and Tybalt were in love, but they were only lovers of the worst kind. They hurt one another. And then Benvolio found out which meant that, of course, it had to end. Tybalt got help. 

Mercutio got worse. 

Neither Benvolio or Tybalt have spoken to him in days, although he has made very little effort to speak to them anyway, so why does it bother him? They left that bar last week without a word, without him, and without Benvolio's car which remained in the car park when Mercutio dragged himself back inside for another drink. 

Mercutio turns over, curling around the pain in his stomach and pressing his sleeve to his lip. The bleeding has stopped at last. 

Thunder shakes the room, and lightning pours over everything in a brilliant white flood, freezing him in place. For a moment it seems he can see his bones through the skin of his hand, blue veins glistening. He is paper. He is nothing, blown by a wind. Rain lashes his window and the glass rattles in the frame, jumping, quaking. Mercutio is almost convinced the window may shatter if the rain turns to hail, and fear starts to tighten a hand around his throat. This is a fear that he and Valentine have always shared. They had spent too many nights in the summer storms sleeping front-to-back under a bridge, a truck, an abandoned tarpaulin as the world dissolved into ozone and chaos. Mercutio forces himself to start up a steady inhale-exhale. 

He hears feet outside his door, a quick patter-patter and then light spills through a fleeting gap. His covers are drawn back, then a cold nose is pressing against the back of his neck. Valentine has been crying. Mercutio tenses up, not moving, not turning over. His breathing continues to come in long, low rasps and Valentine seems to take that as proof of sleep because the younger draws the covers up over the two of them and curls up, the hard knobs of his kneecaps digging into the ridges of Mercutio's spine. Freezing toes mark imprints into the back of Mercutio's legs, and trembling fingers hook into his shirt, the one still stained with blood all down the front. Innocence has come to his bed all at once, and for the first time in months Mercutio _feels_ something. His breath hitches in his throat. 

He is feeling what he had tried to get from Tybalt, through teeth and nails. A little quiver runs down his back. 

"You know what they say about dogs and cold noses." Mercutio says very softly, his words barely above a whisper. Valentine laughs, breath hot and uneven, so close that his lashes scrape the back of Mercutio's neck when he blinks. It is as if he is trying to enwomb the two of them, twins in all but their age, under the bedclothes. 

"I'm not sick, 'Cutio. It's cold." Valentine starts to wrap his arms around Mercutio, and stops when his brother hisses in pain.

"You alright?" 

"Clipped my side on-" 

"The table, or the dresser- what was it?" And Valentine has such a calm, clear Don't Bullshit Me voice, one learned from Mercutio no less, that the older has to laugh into the crook of his elbow. 

"You learn fast."

"I don't have to learn anything, because I already know you." Valentine sits up, turning Mercutio over, and his fingers are hard points of tension splayed across bruised skin. 

"Fuck-" Mercutio hisses as Valentine's bony knees knock his ribcage. 

"Shit." Valentine pulls back, two high points of colour burning on his cheeks. He looks a bit sick. Mercutio feels oddly guilty. 

"Language." Mercutio sits up with a wry, chiding smile, and ruffles Valentine's hair. The younger's laugh is full of water and weak sunlight. Valentine sinks back onto his haunches, rubbing the back of his neck in another Mercutio-learned gesture. Mercutio is reminded then that Valentine is only fifteen; eight years his junior, an enigma. Younger than his age for the sake of his lost childhood, but older too, because of the events that contributed to the loss. Mercutio is the same. 

They really are twins in all but age. 

"Why don't you go to Escalus for help? Was this the girl you've been seeing, T?" Valentine has hurt Mercutio, and has no idea.

"Because it was... a stranger. A." Mercutio steels himself, layering armour inches thick over the bruises both physical and metaphorical. "Heavens help me, Tino. It was a man." 

"Oh." 

"Yes." Mercutio lowers his eyes and, bizarrely, finds himself laughing. "This, uh, this isn't how I expected to come out, truth be told. I had a, a giant closet in mind in the reception room or at dinner, and. Fake snow, get it?" 

"Narnia." Valentine says, completely serious. "The Pevensies ended up in there because they didn't want to get in trouble, remember? To keep themselves safe." 

And Mercutio can say nothing to that. His tongue has been well and truly tied. Is Valentine angry? Upset? Maybe the younger will seize the cross around his neck and declare Mercutio, who has never loved the God who made him as he is, a sinful creature. Horror wells up in his stomach. 

Valentine suddenly hugs him instead, cold nose and worried frown smashed into the side of Mercutio's choke-bruised neck, sharp limbs digging in at every inconvenient angle. 

"I still love you, Cutio. You're my brother." Valentine says and his words are pure, complete truth. Mercutio holds Valentine close, curling around him, knowing that their bodies will never fit as those of lovers do and knowing, too, that their bond is all the better for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on a canon-era standalone oneshot/drabble at the moment, which consists of a conversation between Benvolio and Valentine after the canon events of Romeo and Juliet, and draws on the theory that the Valentine in The Two Gents of Verona is the same as the one mentioned to be Mercutio's brother. These drabbles are taking a backseat until I get that done, but I have a definite two further prompts to work on (remember those Russian words?) and a possible other one, so this is fairly near completion anyway. See you next time :)


	4. Ostyt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he can be saved, but what about Them?

One foot in the door before it can close, wincing, but never losing face. Never breaking eye contact. Tybalt is wearing a dressing gown and his hair is damp at the edges. 

"I love you." Mercutio grips the doorframe and Tybalt is unable to close the door, lest he crush Mercutio's fingers. "I do, I did, but we're- you're- ostyt." that is a good word, "Ostyt." Saying it again, hoping that Tybalt might understand him. Rainwater drips from his hair into his face, down the curve of his nose and over the soft swell of his bottom lip. Tybalt reaches out and thumbs it away. Some old habits can never be broken. The skin that peruses the lower bow of Mercutio's lip is worn, calloused. Same as always. 

"What does that mean?" he sounds so patient. Mercutio sucks in a deep breath, but struggles to explain himself, so many words on his tongue and none of them taking shape. Tybalt is like a cardboard cutout of himself, washed out, hollow; but his shoulders and fencer's body still fill the doorway. A sliver of room is visible between his hip and the door: clothes, lights low, two glasses of wine. 

"It's, it's word used for a cup of tea that was too hot to drink, and then you come back, but. You're blocking the door. Why are you doing that?" Mercutio pulls his head back. Tybalt's fingers drop away. 

"Mercutio." Tybalt whispers, and, God, Mercutio used to love how his own name could be turned against him. The Capulet could transform it from a caress to a blow with one turn of his clever tongue. Mercutio bows his head and stares at the discarded clothes. Tybalt's lips are bruised. He saw when the door first opened, but he ignored it, as he was apt to ignore all else that he did not want to see. Those flushed lips contort and vanish beneath teeth. "Why did you come?" 

"Queen Mab was with me. She snuck into my room and dropped her disguise to reveal herself as my brother, and planted in my head this idea, Tybalt. And, perhaps it's an insane idea, but maybe I can be saved." Mercutio steps back again. He fiddles with his coat hem, fingers slipping over the cheap plastic. This is one of Tybalt's old coats. Mercutio takes it off and holds it out to his ex boyfriend as one might an olive branch, as a peace offering. "Can I come in?" 

"I don't think that's a good idea. Come back in the morning." Tybalt takes the coat; he is too used to accepting everything that Mercutio does. He shakes it onto his doormat before balling it up and throwing it back into the flat. Towards the washbasket, if memory serves. He steps back and seats himself in the centre of the hallway, cross-legged, elbows on knees and palms on chin and eyes fixed on the Capulet who looks as if he is deciding whether to show pity or anger. 

"I'll wait until morning then." Mercutio says it like the grand revelation. "You've taken my coat and it's raining." he allows himself a grin. It blazes across his face and fades like a sparkler: false warmth, false light. Tybalt crosses his arms. Something is knocked over in the lowlight behind him. Footsteps. Glasses knock together. They both pretend not to hear it. 

"Touché." Tybalt says. He holds the door wide and Mercutio springs to his feet, a few quick steps and then he is back in the place where everything went wrong, face to face with Benvolio. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poly heart needs poly ships, so this is taking a turn in that direction, in one form or another.


	5. Broken and Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercutio learns a lot of things, least of all that Prince Escalus wears crocs as slippers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparantly I'm not done with these drabbles yet

Mercutio draws a deep breath. He wants to be somewhere else. 

_The beach, the summer after highschool, Romeo swan-diving off the highest point he could find and dislocating his shoulder. Tybalt's awful pickup truck that had somehow fit the five of them. Juliet squirting suncream in Mercutio's face--_

But it is too late. Mercutio is feeling. 

He curses and slams the tall glass bottle of sparkling water down on the marble countertop. It shatters and so does his resolve. All of the emotion that he has been holding back comes flooding through: betrayal, relief, loss, anger. Anger. It has been so long since he let himself feel that. And damnit, did he need to feel it. He grabs another bottle from the fridge and hurls it at the wall opposite. 

The kitchen light flicks on. Escalus stands there in his dressing gown and those stupid slipper-crocs, his reading glasses sliding down the end of his nose. Mercutio freezes. 

"What are you doing?" Escalus doesn't let anything show in his voice and Mercutio has to mentally applaud him for that. Water puddles around Mercutio's bare feet. 

"I just found out that my ex-boyfriend and my best friend are screwing one another," Mercutio says and to his credit, he doesn't spit the revelation in Escalus' face or scream it. He's calm, possibly even a touch contrite. Escalus blinks. Folds his glasses away into the pocket of his dressing gown. Sighs. 

"Stay there," Escalus says. 

Mercutio watches his uncle in disbelief as he picks up the dustpan and brush and crouches to sweep up the glass. The Prince of Verona, who treats his hollow title as if they're living in the days of monarchy long gone, down on his knees and sweeping glass. Mercutio would laugh, but something in his brain has become momentarily unhinged. He can't remember how to do anything but stand there with his mouth open, speechless. 

"I've always known about you being gay," Escalus says as he stands and empties the glass shards into the bin. "No, don't move yet." He leaves the room and returns with a pair of slippers. Mercutio thinks that they belong to Paris, but doesn't dare say anything as he puts them on. Still speechless, Mercutio follows Escalus into the dining room. 

"But you never said anything." Mercutio sits with his knees hugged to his chest. His hair is still damp from his sprint back from Tybalt's apartment and his shirt sticks awkwardly to clammy skin. The whole scenario is uncomfortable in more ways than one. 

"Did you need me to?" Escalus goes to the back table, where an urn of water and several cups stand. He puts two teabags in each cup and turns to face Mercutio as the water boils. His face is completely serious. 

"Did I need... Did I--" Mercutio digs his fingers into his knees, "Christ! Yes, Uncle, of course I did!" 

"Lower your voice, please. Valentine is still asleep." 

"I needed you to say that it was okay. That _I_ was okay!" Mercutio drops his voice to a hissing, spitting whisper. Escalus' shoulders sag as he turns to pour the tea and brings the cups over. He sits opposite Mercutio, hands spread awkwardly on the tabletop. 

"Mercutio..." the name hangs heavy. Escalus' face is ashen. "You have spent the last fifteen years fighting me, never letting me love you like the son I wish I had. I don't know how to talk to you anymore." 

Mercutio has nothing to say to that. Escalus continues in the silence.

"I didn't know you felt that way, and didn't know how to broach the subject." 

"I thought that you were dissapointed in me," Mercutio says in a small voice, "You always say that I've got so much of mother in me." 

"And you thought that was a bad thing?" Escalus really does sound surprised. 

"Well, yeah." Mercutio pauses, unsure. "She disgraced the family name." 

Escalus exhales a heavy, grating breath. "Fuck the family name." He rubs his brow. Mercutio tries to process both the words and the sentiment that came out of his uncle's mouth. He can't. "She was my sister and I loved her. I care about this city and keeping the peace, and if my investments and role as a figurehead keep the economy above water then so be it." 

Mercutio is reeling. He aches, he's cold to the bone; his brain is running on fumes. It's hard enough to listen to Escalus drone on about His City at the best of times, but this is something else. Mercutio has a distinct sense that he has somehow slipped through the cracks into an alternate dimension. 

"So... you're not the arrogant prick I assumed you to be? You've actually got _good intentions?_ " 

If Escalus is offended by the cutting image that Mercutio painted, he shows no sign of it. His voice is patient when he speaks again, tired. Paternal, even. 

"The very same that the road to hell is paved with." Escalus smiles wryly. "Look, Mercutio. My point is that I'm not a warm person--" 

Mercutio cuts in. "Obsessed with justice, fair to a fault, distant and unhealthily obsessed with the wellbeing of your ancesteral home." 

"Thank you for that assessment." Escalus casts Mercutio a withering glare over his teacup. " _But_ , as I was saying, I do care about you. The problem was never your tearaway nature or your friends or your sexual preference--the problem is the lack of concern you have for your own wellbeing. That is what makes you so much like your mother, and I won't see you go down that road too." 

Silence falls. Mercutio sips his tea and stares at the wall just behind Escalus' head. He has always entertained an image of himself and Escalus as foils to one another; Mercutio a Robin Hood to Escalus' King John. But that notion is childish. He can see it clearer now in the dim light from the hallway than he has ever done: they're just two people who don't know how to be kind with love. A low sound breaks from Mercutio's mouth. He claps his hands over it. 

And then he is crying, crying like he hasn't for years. His hand claws out for purchase on the tabletop and Escalus takes it. Nothing more needs to be said. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr (pistachiomercutio) and kick my procrastinating self into updating when I forget, or just drop a hello and some writing prompts.


End file.
